When was the last time you got up early, really early? And why were you up when all sensible people are still sleeping? The answer to that second question makes a huge difference: maybe you do this every day for work, maybe you are off on a holiday (somehow getting up at 3am feels bearable when there is a sunny beach waiting), or maybe there is something weighing on your mind and you give up on trying to sleep.
 
In the Gospels we read of a woman who, one morning long ago, could no longer sleep. Indeed it seems a reasonable guess that Mary Magdalene had slept very little for the two days since she had watched the brutal execution of Jesus. And so “very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, [she] went to the tomb”, expecting to complete the burial rites for Jesus’ body. Instead in the cool of a spring dawn she met Jesus Himself, alive. Every Easter in the more than two thousand years since, the Church has celebrated the meaning of that dawn encounter, not as something that happened once, a long time ago, but as a living reality. Millions of Christians can still tell their own versions of Mary’s story: that meeting the living Lord has changed their lives. This Easter we will proclaim again: “Alleluia Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, alleluia!”. Come and join the celebration.